Saturday

Jun 2, 2018 at 12:45 PMJun 4, 2018 at 10:49 AM

WORCESTER - Democratic State Convention delegates at the DCU Center on Saturday endorsed Jay Gonzalez for governor and Quentin Palfrey for lieutenant governor, and in a rebuff to longtime incumbent William Galvin, backed Josh Zakim for secretary of state.

Gonzalez, of Needham, who served as secretary of administration and finance under Gov. Deval Patrick, received 70 percent of the delegate vote to win the endorsement for governor.

A rival candidate for governor, Bob Massie, of Somerville, an environmental activist, author and Episcopal priest who was Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in 1994, received 30 percent of the delegate vote and earned a place on the primary ballot.

Convention endorsements go to statewide candidates who receive a majority vote of the delegates. But any candidate who receives 15 percent of delegate votes earns a place on the ballot for the Sept. 4 primary, which will decide the nominees for the general election on Nov. 6.

Winning the endorsement for lieutenant governor was Palfrey, a Weston resident and Southborough native who was a senior adviser to the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy under President Obama.

Palfrey won 59 percent of the vote, to 41 percent for Jimmy Tingle, of Cambridge, the political humorist, who said he was “100 percent serious” about his bid for the state’s second-highest office. Mr. Tingle earned a place on the primary ballot.

In the balloting for secretary of state, delegates delivered a setback to the six-term incumbent, Galvin, endorsing his challenger, Zakim.

The Boston city councilor and son of the late religious and civil rights leader Leonard Zakim, namesake of the Bunker Hill Bridge, received 54.8 percent of the vote. But Galvin, with 45.2 percent of the vote, still makes the ballot.

Zakim, in his remarks to delegates, described the spirit of progressive activism he would bring to the job as the state’s chief elections officer. “We need to make it easier to register to vote and we need to make it easier to vote - now,” he said, calling for automatic voter registration, same-day registration and weekend election days.

He pledged as secretary of state to bring “a fighting spirit of inclusiveness to the job every single day.”

Galvin was asked if the challenge reflected a generational change in Democratic politics.

“Well, yes,” the 24-year incumbent replied. “The basis of the challenge is age. It’s certainly not experience.” He expressed confidence that he would prevail in the primary.

“Well, Charlie, you can’t hide from us! We are pulling back the curtain on your failed leadership! We expect more from our governor! Not being crazy is not good enough!”

Gonzalez, perhaps a foot shorter than Baker, a 6-foot-6-inch former Harvard basketball player, referenced his own diminutive stature to say he and the Democratic Party fight for the “little guy.”

He recalled shaking hands with a voter who told him: “You’re too short to be governor!”

Gonzalez continued: “Yes, I’m a little guy. But not just because of my height.

“While I’ve been fortunate in many respects, it hasn’t always been easy. As the only Spanish kid where I grew up, I was the target of hurtful, ethnic slurs. In college, I struggled through a deep depression after my best friend and roommate, Pete, unexpectedly died.

“My parents were little guys too. My mom dropped out of college to take care of me. My dad didn’t speak English, and he’d never been to college.

“But they believed and worked hard. They raised three sons. My mom became a public school teacher and member of the teacher’s union. My dad became a successful small businessman and a proud American citizen.

“And it’s what the Democratic Party is all about. Democrats have always believed in the little guy. We have always fought for the little guy. We have always understood that the little guy is us.

“Today’s Republican Party doesn’t give a damn about the little guy,” Gonzalez said.

“Donald Trump is a racist and a bully who assaults women and taunts people with disabilities, gives tax cuts to his wealthy friends, and builds walls to keep the little guys out.

Gonzalez set out an agenda calling for increased access to affordable child care and preschool, debt-free college, a single-payer health system, improved public transportation and a more effective response to climate change and to the opioid crisis.

Massie, laying out his own progressive vision for the corner office, said he wanted to be “the people’s governor.” He also tied the Republican incumbent to Trump.

“The Republican Party abandoned its values in order to achieve power, and in doing so they sold their soul to the monied interests who use them as a tool, and Charlie Baker is the epitome of that failure,” Massie said.

“No, he is not Trump,” he said. “Baker does not say hateful things - but it is what he does not say that shows the emptiness of his heart and the absence of his spine. His silence speaks for him.

“When tens of thousands of people exercise their right of assembly, and show up over and over again in the streets demanding change, you would think the governor of that state might show up or say something. But he’s too terrified of Donald Trump.”

In the contest for lieutenant governor, more than 40 percent of the delegates backed a comedian for their party’s ticket in the fall.

Tingle, addressing the convention, wove humor into a blue-collar appeal to old-time Democratic values aimed at “people we have lost and people who have been left behind.”

“Government matters. Government can save people’s lives,” Tingle said. “I believe in God and the power of government to change people’s lives.”

His political philosophy, and the Democrats’, he said, is to “feed the hungry, house the homeless, heal the sick, welcome the stranger - and I would add, fix the T.”

He said: “If John F. Kennedy could inspire a generation to go to the moon, we could get a high-speed rail to Springfield.”

Former Congressman Barney Frank, nominating Tingle, described the stand-up comic who earned a masters in public administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School as “righteous without being self-righteous,” delivering “a serious moral message with humor.” Mr. Tingle, he said, “is our worst nightmare’s worst nightmare.”

Palfrey, who won the endorsement for lieutenant governor, told delegates “our American values are under attack” at this moment in the nation’s history.

“When I was thinking about running for office last summer, there were these awful events in Charlottesville,” Palfrey said. “ And I remember seeing this small group of students - some were white and some were black - and they were standing in front of a sign that said ‘Virginia students against white supremacy.’ And all around them were people with tiki torches - remember the tiki torches?

“And some of the signs had swastikas on them and some of the people in the crowd were members of the Ku Klux Klan. And I asked myself, ‘What am I going to tell my children, and my grandchildren, that I did when our American values were so obviously under attack?’

“And I want to tell them that we stood up, and we fought back, and we pounded our fists on the table and screamed till we were hoarse that that isn’t the kind of America we want to live in,” he said.

The Democratic ticket is expected to face an uphill fight this year against the Republican incumbents, Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito.

While Democrats predominate in blue Massachusetts, Baker, rated the nation’s most popular governor in a Morning Consult survey, enjoys job approval ratings near 70 percent and according to the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance has more than $8 million in his campaign chest. Gonzalez reported less than $132,000 on hand as of mid-May, and Massie, just $18,000, according to the OCPF.

“Don’t believe the insiders who say Baker can’t be beat,” Gonzalez told delegates. “The media and the special interests and the pundits don’t decide who our governor is going to be. We decide. We decide!”

More than 6,000 delegates converged at the DCU Center this weekend for the two-day convention, according to the state party.

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